Defence Minister A K Antony today asked all stakeholders to have regular deliberations and solve their problems within the initial stages of any project or programme for timely delivery of the same to the services.

Speaking at an international seminar on " Challenges in Design to Deployment of the Aerospace Products" on the eve of the inauguration of Aero India 2013 in Bangalore, Antony said 'Our Mantra must be jointness in day-to-day working, if we wish to succeed in reducing the content of the imported weaponry and increase the indigenous content.'

Defining a 'successful design' as one that properly translates the design into an acceptable product, meeting the requirements of the end users, Antony said this is not an easy task and the development and production agencies face several challenges along the way.

Asserting that Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas is undergoing several flight and ground tests to meet the requirements of the users, Antony said: "The very long gestation period of development in aerospace products introduces elements of additional challenges for all the agencies. Aerospace systems have become highly avionics and software intensive."

"Such technologies change at mind boggling pace. It is imperative to ensure that the user requirements are met and the design of these requirements are finalised as early as possible. The product, along with the technologies available on the date, should be released with regular updates to take care of the technological advancements," he added.

Turning to investment in Research and Development, Antony said R and D efforts in the country are mostly government- funded and by government agencies.

He said the private sector should step in a big way not only in R and D but also in production.

" Industries have several opportunities to participate in major defence acquisition programmes by making use of our offset policies. If our private industries also invest in R and D, I'm confident that the requirements of our users would be met much earlier than is the case now", he said.

Antony further complimented the Designing and Production agencies for overcoming several challenges and giving the country such products as the Tejas, weaponised Advanced Light Helicopter Dhruv, Akash Missiles and Brah Mos etc.